Federal regulators clear $3.4 billion acquisition of Syntel

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the deal

Syntel shareholders must confirm the acquisition before it can close next month

The Troy-based IT company's shareholders are scheduled to vote on Atos SE's purchase Oct. 1.

Federal regulators have cleared the $3.4 billion acquisition of Troy-based Syntel Inc. by French computer services company Atos SE.

In the acquisition's last regulatory hurdle, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved that the deal was free of national security concerns, a news release said. Other previous approvals included clearances from regulatory agencies in Austria, Serbia and India.

The deal faces shareholder authorization at a special meeting Oct. 1. The deal could close later that month.

Syntel was trading at $40.93 per share with the ticker SYNT on the Nasdaq as of midday Tuesday. That's up from $39.13 per share prior to the deal's announcement in July.

The purchase of the IT firm would give Atos, a worldwide corporation that specializes in big data and cybersecurity among other services, access to large U.S. financial customers such as American Express Co. of New York City and State Street Corp. of Boston. Atos has sought to expand to the U.S., although Syntel employs the bulk of its 23,000-person workforce in India.

Syntel's co-chairman and founder, Bharat Desai, is a Kenya native who immigrated to Detroit from India in 1976 on what was supposed to be a six-month assignment, eventually getting his MBA and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1985.

Desai started Syntel with his wife, Neerja Sethi, in 1980. The company ranked 27th on Crain's list of largest publicly traded companies in Southeast Michigan for 2017 with revenue of $924 million.